File No. 863.001F85/8
The Secretary of State to the Chargé d’Affaires of Austria-Hungary
Washington, November 23, 1916.
Sir: I have had the honor to receive with great regret your note of yesterday by which you officially communicate to me the sad intelligence of the death of His Majesty Franz Joseph I, Emperor of Austria, King of Bohemia and Apostolic King of Hungary, at five minutes past nine o’clock on the evening of November the twenty-first.
It has been my pathetic duty to bring promptly this information to the knowledge of the President who, greatly shocked by the demise of this venerable and illustrious ruler for whom he entertained high esteem and regard, has conveyed directly by telegram to Emperor Karl Franz Joseph and the Imperial and Royal Family his own sincere condolences and those of the Government and people of the United States in this great grief which has come upon the Dual Monarchy, and extended to the new Emperor his best wishes for his personal well being and prosperity.
I have in like manner offered to the Minister for Foreign Affairs of Austria-Hungary the expression of my own personal sympathy in the great loss which has been sustained by Austria-Hungary. Accept [etc.]